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Building bridges: Putin, Erdogan to outline roadmap for new ties in 'historic' meeting in Russia


Sputnik News
Fri, 05 Aug 2016 00:00 UTC
Putin- Erdogan
© Sputnik/ Mikhail Klimentyev
Turkish Ambassador in Russia said that Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan will outline a roadmap to bring bilateral relations to a new level since the Russian jet downing froze ties.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan will outline a roadmap to bring bilateral relations to a new level since the Russian jet downing froze ties, Turkish Ambassador in Russia Umit Yardim said Friday.

Putin and Erdogan are scheduled to meet next Tuesday, August 9, in St. Petersburg.

"The leaders will discuss a full range of available issues. First, the negotiations will be tete-a-tete, and then between the delegations. And, of course, the presidents will outline a roadmap to bring our relations to a qualitatively new level in the course of August 9 negotiations," Yardim told RIA Novosti in an interview.

He said policymakers, business, economic, social and cultural officials will then put the roadmap into practice.

"I can quite confidently say that this is a historic meeting. We have been preparing for almost a month for it," the diplomat stressed.

Comment: See also:

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Rose

Putin commits to help build new Iran satellite and loan billions for infrastructure


Fort Russ
Sat, 06 Aug 2016 00:00 UTC
Putin-Rouhani
© Unknown
State loans amounting to 2.2 billion euros to be provided by the Russian Federation to Iran, will be used to finance the construction of thermal power and electrification of the railway system in the north-east of the country, said Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"Being explored are large-scale joint projects in the oil and gas industry, the aerospace industry, and the power industry.
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Play

Battle for Aleppo: Russians and SAA utterly shatter Takfiris in Aleppo - 7000+ casualties


Fort Russ
Sat, 06 Aug 2016 00:00 UTC
Aleppo Battle
© Unknown
The joint Russian-Syrian humanitarian operation to assist the civilian population of the city, continues in Aleppo. This is despite the attempts of Al Nusra terrrorist fighting groups, supported by the US, to prevent the escape of people from the blockaded areas of the city.

A military source told RusVesna the details of the ongoing operations.

In several eastern corridors of Aleppo designated by the Syrian government as humanitarian, forces were deployed to rescue and assist the civilians who had been essentially been taken as hostages and human shields by the Takfiris. As of yesterday, over 600 hostages had been freed. These people were taken to refugee settlements and first aid was provided.
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Megaphone

Black Lives Matter leader on racism, Trump and how great people are supporting systems that marginalize black people

Josh Eidelson
Bloomberg Businessweek
Thu, 04 Aug 2016 00:00 UTC
Alicia Garza
© Bloomberg BusinessweekAlicia Garza
The following is a condensed and edited interview with Alicia Garza, co-founder, Black Lives Matter.

People often trace Black Lives Matter to three years ago. The night George Zimmerman was acquitted after killing Trayvon Martin, you went on Facebook and wrote ...
A rant is what I called it, but it ended up being a love letter to black people. There was so much being said either about "we already knew that was going to happen," or about what black folks need to do to prevent ourselves from being murdered­—"just vote," "just get a better education. ..." None of that deals with how vigilantes are grown and supported by laws, or how to eradicate ­systemic racism.

Comment: For more information see the links below:

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Briefcase

Personal interview with alledged arms dealer reveals torture and secret prisons

Seth Ferris
New Eastern Outlook
Sat, 06 Aug 2016 16:34 UTC
Amir Ardebili
Amir Ardebili is one of the few people I know who is the protagonist of a whole book and subject of a movie, "Operation Shakespeare."

He's neither a musician nor a film director; he didn't save his granny from an aggressor or rescue a kidnapped child. But on the basis of what you've heard, you wouldn't invite him to your daughter's party or cry on his shoulders when you've quarreled with your partner. Ardebili is supposed to be a monster, practically Satan in person: he is a convicted international arms dealer.

Or at least, this is what the mainstream media have reported so far.

He arrives at our lunch appointment in Iran a few weeks ago bit late, but is accompanied by his gentle and polite wife and a wonderful newborn baby in a pink cradle. Not bad for a monster. We greet each other, sit at the restaurant table and order traditional Iranian dishes.

We start chatting about traveling and places to visit, but his wife is rather nervous; she's afraid I'm there to harm him, or play a bad trick on him. I explain that I am just an English teacher, but I know his case thanks to a mutual friend who did his best to give him a hand some time ago. I also point out immediately that it's probably because of him that my former boss, an Argentinean jack-of-all-trades who was in good standing with the American Ambassador in Georgia, Richard Norland and his acolytes at USAID, began spreading it around that I was under the scrutiny of unspecified American secret services who was asking him about me.

According to him, quote, "I was following some Iranians." Amir smiles: "Well, one of them may well have been me!"
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Gear

Convenient omissions: Amnesty International condemns Thai government for human rights abuses, yet ignores Shinawatra terrorism


The New Atlas
Sat, 06 Aug 2016 00:00 UTC
Thailand red shirts
(For now over a decade, Thailand opposition groups (called "red shirts") have repeatedly depended on Western human rights advocates to pressure the government into allowing widespread protests which then are inevitably used as cover for armed violence. Today, Amnesty International is attempting to reignite the violent cycle once again.)
Amnesty International strongly condemned tomorrow's referendum regarding Thailand's new charter aimed at moving the nation forward after over a decade of political chaos and now two military coups, the most recent having been in 2014.

Thailand's The Nation would report in an article titled, "Amnesty International questions reliability of referendum," would claim:
The Amnesty International has questioned the reliability of the Sunday referendum, pointing out it will be held under "chilling climate" when the people cannot speak their minds freely.

In its press statement issued Friday, the Amnesty International said the referendum is taking place "against a backdrop of pervasive human rights violations that have created a chilling climate". It said the Thai authorities have arbitrarily arrested scores of people, have cancelled or disrupted peaceful assemblies and took off the air a television station in recent weeks.

It said these incidents were just the most recent undue restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association.
However, what Amnesty International does not say is that the arrests were not "arbitrary," and instead targeted supporters of ousted former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, now a convicted criminal living in self-exile to evade a 2 year jail sentence and a raft of other pending criminal charges, according to the London Guardian.

Comment: Amnesty International: US State Department Propaganda Machine, Betrays Real Human Rights

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Bad Guys

Turkey coup uncovered as another CIA operation by journalists

Martin Berger
New Eastern Outlook
Sat, 06 Aug 2016 16:38 UTC
turkey coup punishment
© Unknown
Non-corporate media sources have recently uncovered yet another CIA operation that shocks even experienced analysts because of Washington's blatant confidence that its criminal actions in different regions of the world will go unnoticed and unpunished. We see yet again that in order to secure its foreign interests along with the interests of US military contractors, the White House is demanding the CIA to constantly develop new covert operations aimed at overthrowing political figures who object to Washington's interests upon the international scene.

One should not be surprised if tomorrow a CIA agent appears, demanding obedience to American dictates. If only the international community would rally against such malicious practices, demanding the White House and the CIA to answer for their actions in front of an international tribunal.

According to the Turkish newspaper Yeni Safak Daily, the failed military coup in Turkey was staged by the White House. The newspaper is providing details regarding who exactly was behind the preparations of this bloody event, noting that due to rapidly deteriorating relations between the Obama administration and Turkish leader Tayyip Erdogan, Washington launched an operation to create preconditionsfor the toppling of the Turkish president.
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Document

US releases redacted version of deadly drone strike policy


Sputnik
Sat, 06 Aug 2016 16:26 UTC
US Predator drone
© AFP 2016/ MASSOUD HOSSAINI
The US authorities released a redacted version of the paper outlining the government's policy framework for drone strikes outside the United States and in "areas of actual hostilities," the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said Saturday.

The Presidential Policy Guidance (PPG) was issued in May 2013 amid promises by the US administration of more transparency and tougher control over the drone program. However, only a short "fact sheet" on the document has been released for public.

In 2015, the ACLU filed a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act, demanding that the government release the PPG in full. In February 2016, a court ordered the government to submit the document for the court's review. The government said it would prepare a redacted version of the PPG for public.

"We welcome the release of these documents, and particularly the release of the Presidential Policy Guidance that has supplied the policy framework for the drone campaign since May 2013. The PPG provides crucial information about policies that have resulted in the deaths of thousands of people, including hundreds of non-combatants, and about the bureaucracy that the Obama administration has constructed to oversee and implement those policies," Jameel Jaffer, the ACLU Deputy Legal Director was quoted as saying in the union's statement.

Comment: More from RT:
In general, the disclosed operational plans that are either developed by the CIA or the Pentagon include the decision-making process regarding the timeframe for killing or capturing people, the "strike and surveillance" assets to be used in the operations and the specific counter-terrorism objectives to be achieved.

The Presidential Policy Guidance also seeks a "near certainty" reassurances that civilians will not get killed or injured while hunting down a specific target. The policy however never mentions the term "civilian", but rather a "non-combatant" which according to the document excludes those individuals who are "targetable in the exercise of national self-defense."

Strikes against high-value terrorist targets can only be taken "when there is near certainty" that the person is present. Besides targeting specific individuals, drone strikes are also permitted against the "infrastructure, including explosives storage facilities".

The playbook also stipulates that all operational plans "shall be presented to the president for decision" when there is lack of consensus or the designated target is a US citizen.

Besides the PPG, the White House also released four Pentagon documents. They include the 2014 "Report on Associated Forces," which outlines the groups the US government considers to be "associated" or "affiliated" with al-Qaida; and a 2013 "Department of Defense Implementation of the Presidential Policy Guidance," a heavily redacted memorandum shared with Congress.

The two other documents include a March 2014 "Report on Congressional Notification of Sensitive Military Operations and Counterterrorism Operational Briefings," that outlines the PPG's congressional reporting requirements; and a 2014 "Report on Process for Determining Targets of Lethal or Capture Operations," which discusses the legal and policy standards in the PPG.

Following the release of documents National Security Council spokesman Ned Price defended the US drone strikes abroad saying that the US "counter-terrorism actions are effective and legal, and their legitimacy is best demonstrated by making public more information about these actions as well as setting clear standards for other nations to follow."


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War Whore

Trump on Killary: 'Death, destruction, chaos and weakness'

Jeremy Diamond
CNN
Fri, 05 Aug 2016 16:12 UTC
trumps and clintons
Donald Trump escalated his attacks Friday on Hillary Clinton's character, just as top former government officials are questioning his own.

The Republican nominee, speaking in Des Moines, Iowa, accused Clinton of being "unbalanced" and "unstable," called her a "dangerous" and "pathological" liar and warned voters in this swing state that a Clinton presidency would lead to "the destruction of this country from within."

After knocking himself off message repeatedly in recent weeks, stoking one controversy after the next, Trump, reading at times from prepared remarks on his podium, latched onto voters' concerns about Clinton's trustworthiness and honesty, and sought to amplify the controversies that have beset the Democrat's campaign.
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MIB

How a secretive branch of ISIS built a global network of terrorists

Rukmini Callimachi
The New York Times
Wed, 03 Aug 2016 15:19 UTC
Harry Sarfo, a former Islamic State fighter from Germany
© Gordon Welters for The New York TimesHarry Sarfo, a former Islamic State fighter from Germany, inside the maximum-security prison in Bremen where he is serving a three-year sentence on terrorism charges.
Believing he was answering a holy call, Harry Sarfo left his home in the working-class city of Bremen last year and drove for four straight days to reach the territory controlled by the Islamic State in Syria.

He barely had time to settle in before members of the Islamic State's secret service, wearing masks over their faces, came to inform him and his German friend that they no longer wanted Europeans to come to Syria. Where they were really needed was back home, to help carry out the group's plan of waging terrorism across the globe.

"He was speaking openly about the situation, saying that they have loads of people living in European countries and waiting for commands to attack the European people," Mr. Sarfo recounted on Monday, in an interview with The New York Times conducted in English inside the maximum-security prison near Bremen. "And that was before the Brussels attacks, before the Paris attacks."
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